AUSTRALIA
Man deported for ‘depravity’
A Malaysian tourist was yesterday kicked out of the country after videos showing “extreme sexual depravity and horrific violence” were found on his smartphone during a routine baggage check at Perth Airport. The 43-year-old man, who was not named, arrived on a flight from Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, when the shocking material was discovered. He was held in immigration detention and sent home yesterday after his tourist visa was canceled and his smartphone confiscated. Australian Border Force regional commander for Western Australia Mark Wilson said the images were abhorrent and contravened government regulations, without going into details of what was depicted. “Videos depicting extreme sexual depravity and acts of horrific violence are not acceptable in our community and anyone caught engaging in this behavior risks forfeiting their right to be here,” Wilson said.
CHINA
Industrial accident kills 19
A blast in an industrial park in a southwestern province has killed 19 people and injured 12 others, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. The blast occurred at a Yibin Hengda Technology Co chemical plant in an industrial park in the city of Yibin in Sichuan Province at 6:30pm on Thursday, Xinhua said. Xinhua quoted the Jiangan County Government as saying that the fire was put out yesterday morning and the injured were in a stable condition.
INDONESIA
Papuan leaders protest raid
Papua Province leaders have protested a military and police operation against separatists that they said endangered the lives of villagers in the remote easternmost province. Nduga Regent Yairus Gwijangge said security forces on Wednesday fired on Alguru village with helicopter sorties in an attempt to root out independence fighters they believed were based there. “Thank God there was no reports of casualties, but we regret that they did not warn us before launching the attacks,” Gwijangge said. “It caused panic among villagers,” he said, adding that he had complained to the army and police paramilitary forces. “The forces have to be withdrawn,” he added. Yunus Wonda, the head of Papua Province’s parliament, condemned the operation and yesterday called on security forces to leave the occupied village, saying that villagers were “traumatized.” An Amnesty International investigation released earlier this month said the police and military are responsible for at least 95 unlawful killings in Papua and West Papua provinces since 2010, including targeted slayings of activists. No casualties have been reported. Local police chief Yan Pieter Reba said security forces were responding to attacks by gunmen that killed paramilitary police and civilians.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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